


Twice Burned

by lispeth



Category: Lymond Chronicles
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:19:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lispeth/pseuds/lispeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A letter comes to Malta at Christmas. Post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twice Burned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [auctorial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/auctorial/gifts).



> For auctorial, who wanted a letter and unrequited love.

Christmas in Malta: a storm-whipped sea under the chant of bells; the fasting of Advent, followed by Salve Reginas and the blessing of Epiphany. In Mdina, Jerott Blyth, leaving his devotions, received effusive greetings and a letter from an urchin of eight, who received a four-tari coin for his trouble. The child ran helter-skelter for his home and the Tre Re celebration; Chevalier Blyth remained quite still in the road, heedless of the threatening rain. The seal on the letter was quite as familiar to him as the eight-pointed cross of the Order: news had come, then, from Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny.  
Whatever else his association with Lymond had brought him, it was not boredom. Jerott Blyth, the repentant, the rededicated, the thoroughly committed Knight of the Order of Saint John, was unpleasantly aware of a deep pang of interest. He handled the letter irresolutely, who had rarely been irresolute in his life; the bittersweet face of Marthe rising before him, and the sound of a gunshot in a green valley. Lymond had gained his home, and his lady, on the very day Marthe died; and Jerott had blindly fled to Malta, to the discipline and bloodshed of the Knights.  
It was impossible to forget: Lymond, whose quality Jerott had every reason to know, was above all an earthquake and a fire to those around him; a scythed chariot or the arrows of Apollo and Artemis.  
 _Melodrama, Mr. Blyth_ , whispered a voice from Lyons; Marthe’s ghost passed over his face, and with a sardonic twist of the lip for his own uncertainty he unsealed the letter, stepping into an alcove as the first drops began to fall. To his surprise, he saw within not the neat expected script, but a calligraphic scrawl he had not, to his recollection, seen before.  
 _To Jerott Blyth, Chevalier of the Knights of Saint John, from Philippa Crawford  
From the matron to the priest, greetings. You have not been writing us, you know, and if Francis’ correspondents were not so assiduous in their reports, I would not be able to wish you, as I do now, continued good health.  
Have the Crawfords not meddled in your affairs enough? You may well be asking, and I will tell you that no Crawford desires to pull you unwilling from your appointed path. (Although Sybilla still winces when a bonny lad becomes a priest.) Francis least of all would have you bend your life for his. Nonetheless, and for the last time, I beg the privilege of a sister: to nag._

 _Jerott, come home._

 _There is work to do in Scotland; fighting aplenty, and churches to spare. We have a very nice one here on the property; do we evict the goats, you could be singing Matins there by spring._

 _If duty and such worldly wealth do not tempt you, then let me tell you one thing more: Francis needs you. We are happy and more than happy, but you are his strong right arm. Come to us, please, if you can, and between we three we will placate Marthe with the happiness that is the work of her hands._

It was signed, _with love, Philippa._

Anyone watching Jerott Blyth would have seen only a man receiving indifferent news; of business, perhaps, bales bought and sold. Three quick folds and the paper was stowed away. No one, except perhaps the men of St. Mary’s, would have known how badly he wanted a drink. He allowed himself only water, and an uncharacteristically long swim in the sea. There, with his body suspended and with salt in his eyes, he thought: Philippa, the loving child, was happy, and wanted everyone to be happy together too. It was a fine thing; but there were some fires Jerott Blyth would not run into, anymore.  
He thought along these veins for some time more, and finally turned, angrily, to the other images in his mind: Francis, bereft of Philippa, curled in on himself and dying; the night Francis had almost died, and Philippa felt the fire as if it burned her own skin. More than any pair Jerott had ever seen, the two thought as one; felt as one. Philippa’s words were Lymond’s, and Philippa had said Lymond needed him. Cursing, he hauled himself from the sea.

Jerott Blyth, wary, at war with himself, rode into Midculter on the fourth of April, in the afternoon, when the light was golden. Avoiding the stables, he tethered his horse in a pasture and leaned hard on the fence. He had taken what the Crawfords could give, before, and starved on it; but the fields and valleys of Scotland were as beautiful as they had ever been in his youth, before the rocks and surf of Malta.  
Two boys galloped past on horses, intent in their play: Khaireddin Crawford, he guessed, and a black-headed Culter, a few years older. He watched the black and the guinea-gold head together, and the flanks of their horses shining in the sun, and the knuckles of his hands whitened.  
A nearly-silent footfall behind him; his eyes fixed straight ahead.

“Jerott, my God; is it you?” Turning, the brilliant smile was the same; the cornflower eyes, the achingly familiar line between the brows, as the smile fled.  
“Yes,” Jerott said belatedly. “Yes.” He realized, now, how inexplicable his presence was, here at Midculter, without betraying Philippa’s message or resorting to subterfuge.  
But Lymond, the acid of his tongue by some miracle dissolved-  
“Thank God,” Lymond said, “Will you stay? There is so much to do, Jerott. And I can’t do without you.”  
“Yes,” said Jerott again, and was received, as only once before, into the light and insubstantial embrace.


End file.
